The demand for content from online streaming services has created a potentially lucrative situation for Hollywood studios looking to monetize libraries with digital dollars. But for consumers, the flurry of dealmaking surrounding films and TV shows is creating confusion over who owns what they want to watch.

That wasn’t the original plan.

It had long been thought that studios would blanket most services with all of their titles, letting the content benefit from each service’s growth, rather than betting on the individual players that studios thought would survive and shunning the others.

But when Netflix started ponying up considerable coin to lock down exclusive content, studios started siding with the highest bidder. Pay cablers like HBO, Epix and Starz see their own streaming-content apps as a way to keep their subscribers happy and staying put, and as a way to secure films and TV shows for a longer run and away from other platforms.

Cablers have reason to worry about sub retention: Pay TV households declined by about 366,000 during the second quarter of 2011 (and remained flat in the third quarter), according to IHS Screen Digest, with more losses expected in 2012, analysts say.

Related

And by 2015, nearly 12 million U.S. households will receive TV shows and movies from Internet services rather than a traditional pay TV provider, up from 2.5 million homes at the end of 2010, according to research firm SNL Kagan.

Netflix and its rivals may have to start shelling out more money for content, though.

Without its Starz deal, Netflix no longer has Disney and Sony movies, but will have DreamWorks Animation’s toons — like “Puss in Boots” and ‘Shrek” — starting in 2013, through a pricey new exclusive deal.

As Hollywood brokers more digital deals, content is cluttering screens — from TVs with built-in Internet connections to tablets to smartphones — as well as videogame consoles and other set-top boxes.

Websites too are becoming more fashionable for content delivery, with studios increasingly turning to Facebook to offer up film rentals — Blockbuster is also preparing to offer up its films as rentals on the social network next year, while Warner Bros. acquired Flixster to stream movies and promote cloud-based service UltraViolet.

Meanwhile, Amazon.com, Walmart’s Vudu and Best Buy’s CinemaNow, among others, are stepping up to compete with Apple’s iTunes, still the dominant seller and renter of films and TV shows and pushing to sell more titles through its iCloud. Expect more competition once Redbox starts streaming films through its website.

As a result, there are more than 100,000 full-length TV shows and movies available online at any given moment, according to SNL Kagan and Nielsen.

All of that has forced hardware makers to consider new ways to make finding programming easier — an especially important issue as each streaming service starts looking even more similar to the others, and with the same content.

One answer is to turn to search engines like Microsoft’s Bing, for example, to quickly identify all of the platforms that offer a specific film, TV show or project that features an actor. Microsoft’s Xbox 360 vidgame console will have this feature, which will no doubt be a main talking point at CES next month.

As a result, consumers may end up winning as services offer up cheaper subscription packages to attract more customers.

Vudu, which previously only enabled members to stream films they rented or purchased from its site, is now letting them download the titles for later viewing on a variety of devices. And Best Buy paired up with Intel to add its Insider technology, featured in its second-generation of Intel Core processors, to CinemaNow, which will make more HD versions of films available through the service thanks to its enhanced copyright protection.

No one in Hollywood is expected to complain — at least not as long as their terms keep getting more attractive.

Sign Up for Breaking News Alerts

The demand for content from online streaming services has created a potentially lucrative situation for Hollywood studios looking to monetize libraries with digital dollars. But for consumers, the flurry of dealmaking surrounding films and TV shows is creating confusion over who owns what they want to watch. That wasn’t the original plan. It had long […]

The demand for content from online streaming services has created a potentially lucrative situation for Hollywood studios looking to monetize libraries with digital dollars. But for consumers, the flurry of dealmaking surrounding films and TV shows is creating confusion over who owns what they want to watch. That wasn’t the original plan. It had long […]

The demand for content from online streaming services has created a potentially lucrative situation for Hollywood studios looking to monetize libraries with digital dollars. But for consumers, the flurry of dealmaking surrounding films and TV shows is creating confusion over who owns what they want to watch. That wasn’t the original plan. It had long […]

The demand for content from online streaming services has created a potentially lucrative situation for Hollywood studios looking to monetize libraries with digital dollars. But for consumers, the flurry of dealmaking surrounding films and TV shows is creating confusion over who owns what they want to watch. That wasn’t the original plan. It had long […]

The demand for content from online streaming services has created a potentially lucrative situation for Hollywood studios looking to monetize libraries with digital dollars. But for consumers, the flurry of dealmaking surrounding films and TV shows is creating confusion over who owns what they want to watch. That wasn’t the original plan. It had long […]

The demand for content from online streaming services has created a potentially lucrative situation for Hollywood studios looking to monetize libraries with digital dollars. But for consumers, the flurry of dealmaking surrounding films and TV shows is creating confusion over who owns what they want to watch. That wasn’t the original plan. It had long […]

The demand for content from online streaming services has created a potentially lucrative situation for Hollywood studios looking to monetize libraries with digital dollars. But for consumers, the flurry of dealmaking surrounding films and TV shows is creating confusion over who owns what they want to watch. That wasn’t the original plan. It had long […]